Today the Southern half of the UK is preparing for the worst storm since 1987. Commuters are being advised to not travel if possible and nearly all methods of public transport is suspended until 9am GMT.

While people batten down the hatches at home, what is the cost of severe wether effects to the UK economy. To exacerbate this it’s the last few days of the month, which for many companies is a critical time for doing business.

Surprisingly many employees still aren’t able to do their job away from the office. Whilst this makes sense for some jobs, if you work at a computer all day, why do you need to be in the office to be effective? Everyday I walk across London Bridge on the way to work, it always surprises me how few people are carrying laptops, a totally unscientific poll would say less than 20%.

If all these employees were empowered to work flexibly from home, the effect on the economy could be much less and with the technology widely available it’s not at all difficult to achieve.